


Gatekeeper

by not4cat



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fae Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Bad at Apologies, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Bad at Communicating, Getting Together, M/M, Maybe - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:22:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27661301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not4cat/pseuds/not4cat
Summary: Jaskier isn't quite human, and Lettenhove isn't actually on the continent. When Geralt shatters his heart on the mountain top, Jaskier disappears himself to nurse his wounds, leaving the Witcher with no answers and no way to amend for the actions he's come to regret.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 10
Kudos: 171





	1. Chapter 1

In the very beginning of what he thought was their friendship, Jaskier had debated telling Geralt that the reason the elves broke his lute instead of him was that they were too afraid of what he was. They, unlike the Witcher by his side, had recognised that although he looked human enough and had human blood, he was a completely different creature entirely.

He never got around to it before the next monster Geralt faced, and then he got distracted by how beautiful his new ballad sounds when played on an elven lute. It had been so long since he had had the opportunity to play such an instrument, having spent over half a century away from home by then, and it was enough of a distraction for him to forget about telling the Witcher.

He's surprised that Geralt, with all his Witcher senses, doesn’t notice anything himself. He’s starting to consider telling him again after decades of travelling together when the dragon quest happens. Standing alone on the mountain top, he’s thankful he never got around to it.

Jaskier goes home, following his instincts to find the closest entrance to the Fae courts. The Lettenhove estate, the in-between of the human realm and the Fae, is lonelier than he remembers it. What remains of the west-most wall has started crumbling in the winters he’s spent in Oxenfurt; He’ll have to deal with it before the stonework crushes the young sapling growing beneath it.

He moves into the forest behind the estate, heading deeper into Fae territory, past ancient trees, that open into a sunlit clearing. The oak growing in the centre is centuries older than the trees surrounding it, gnarled branches reaching out towards him as he steps forwards.

His own skull looks back at him from between the roots as he moves closer, the bones as white as they were when the oak had grown from his remains almost a millennia ago. He places his lute and his pack in the tree hollow, where he trusts it will be safe from the elements and sits down. He leans back into the trunk, closes his eyes, and just for a second grieves the loss of Geralt’s friendship, no matter how one-sided it had been.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Geralt sends him away, Jaskier returns home to nurse his broken heart. The Fae realm has a way of making time pass unnoticed...

Jaskier wakes to birds chirping and a birch spirit kneeling by his side. The grass around him has become overgrown with buttercups, and Jaskier realises that he must have slept through to the next spring.

“Viscount,” the dryad says, the way another might say, “King,” noticing that he is awake. They press their forehead to the ground next to him.

Using one hand, he raises the Dryad’s head. “What is it?”

The dryad is awestruck to be in his presence. It takes time for them to shake off the stupor long enough to say: “The wall of the house is starting to come down. Those of us growing beneath it do not know if our trees will be able to survive it.”

Jaskier curses, springing to his feet. He should have dealt with it when he saw the problem, should have known he wouldn’t have had the energy to make the trek back to the house after so much time away.

Tearing through the woods, he’s just in time to catch a large portion of the wall sliding in hastily grown tendrils of ivy, placing it safely on the ground. From there, it is slow work dismantling the more unstable parts and strengthening the ones that don’t seem to have been as affected by time.

Not for the first time, Jaskier wonders if it would be easier to tear Lettenhove to the ground, but some part of him is still unwilling to destroy the last part of his world that has yet to turn to dust. What remained of his parents' graves had been swept away over a decade ago by a flooded river.

He notices the eyes following his movements from the shadows, his court welcoming their lord home. If Geralt wants to blame him for all the wrongs in his life, that is on him. Many other beings will welcome him with open arms.

Very quickly, Jaskier realises that many of the more cunning Fae are aware of why he has come home, and they don’t hesitate to pass it on to the dryads and nymphs whose company he holds. He knows better than to try and curb their protective instincts, but as he braids buttercups into the hair of a Kelpie that has stumbled its way into his forest, he warns them away from doing real harm to Geralt. The older spirits and Fae know that he is not joking when he says that they will pay if they cross him.

Stories start to come back to him from the few of his court that dare venture out into the human realm like him, tales of growing moss over his swords at night to hide them from sight in daylight, of pulling his feet with the current in a fight to make him unable to duck his enemies blows. He rewards the first dryad by bribing the noisy family of magpies nesting in its branches away and helps beavers build a dam in the nix’s river for the injury they caused his Witcher.

He pries stories of his Witcher from anyone that crosses through his land and realises that even time and Geralt’s tirade has not curbed his love for him. He knows better than to believe the stories of Witchers being heartless, he’s seen Geralt with Yennefer, but Jaskier had hoped that he and Geralt were at least friends.

His small court grows larger in number. Yet more come to hear him tell stories of the human world, to listen to him sing and compose ballads. Some come to listen to his ballads about the white wolf, stories of splendour of which they have heard only rumours; those travellers leave disappointed.

He resigns himself to waiting for the stories of Geralt to stop coming, to sleep a century away by the oak which marks his grave in mourning, and then move on to find another love. No one would ever compare to Geralt of Rivia, he knew, but he had longer than forever to try and find a substitute.

He’s sitting strumming a ballad about a willow tree and the river running underneath his branches, the dryad and nymph that inspired it sitting a stone’s throw away. A soft bell echoes through the clearing. He looks up to see the Fae queen step into his court.

“Gatekeeper,” she says and tilts her head in a shallow bow as Jaskier struggles to pick his jaw off the ground. Jaskier struggles to his feet; in his forest, he may as well outrank any Fae, but the queen is the one who granted him power in the first place.

She eyes him. “You have hidden from the world long enough. Don’t you think it's time to return to the human realm, lest you forget what it is like?”

"Your majesty," Jaskier starts, realising that he has forgotten to track the passage of time in his efforts to forget about Geralt. He glances to the side, at the nymph and dryad, and his heart pangs at the sight of them, limbs entangled and whispering to each other. 

The queen sighs and leads him away from the two. “The last time you spent this long in Lettenhove was after the last bard you looked up to passed away. You are doing the same thing now.”

Jaskier winces. “I’m not sure what you want me to do.”

“You may have argued with your Witcher, but you should not have to wait for him to turn to dust to continue living your life.” They stop next to the veil dividing the worlds. Jaskier blinks, and she is gone, leaving behind silver magic sparking in the air.

He turns to return to his oak to consider her words, only to find another Fae holding his belongings. “Her majesty said not to allow you back.” 

The Fae has retrieved his pack from the tree hollow, alongside the dagger he had buried there centuries ago. A sylph floats his lute over to him from where he had left it on the ground. Putting shoes on is an unexpected feeling, reminding him of how much he hated walking in them.

Jaskier nods to the Fae and then walks into the veil; he may be able to fight his way out of this, but making the queen angry is not something he wants to do. Between one step and the next, he breaks through the tree line, a village in the distance. He continues walking, deciding that he might as well reveal that he’s back with a bang.

The village has a bustling market going in its square. Jaskier loses himself in it on his way to the inn, coming away with the knowledge that it's been three decades since he walked amongst mortals, as well as several new doublets that caught his eye.

He’s finally approaching the inn, night falling overhead when the door gets thrown open, and Jaskier finds himself facing an angry Geralt. Surprise flashes across the Witcher’s face, and then he’s storming past him, and Jaskier fears that this is the only time he is going to see him for the next decade, but Geralt grabs the strap of his pack on the way past.

Jaskier curses on his way through the village, particularly when he feels the blisters on his feet begin to burn. Once they are out of the village and Geralt keeps dragging him along, Jaskier feels the fear begin to mount that the Witcher is going to do what he wanted destiny to do and kill him.

A dryad catches his eye when they cross the tree line, and Jaskier feels the power of the forest flood his veins, but he shakes his head minutely. The trees do pull their roots out from underneath his feet as Geralt continues through the forest.

The forest opens up to a river, Roach grazing on the bank. Geralt lets go, but he still isn't looking at him, so Jaskier takes the opportunity to grow some better grass around Roach.

“Where on the continent have you been, Jaskier?” Geralt eventually turns around, and the bard is not sure what the emotion is in his eyes. “Even Yennefer couldn’t find you.”

Geralt turns away again to start a fire and Jaskier can’t tear his eyes away from him. “I wasn’t on the continent,” he answers finally when the fire is roaring. “I’m glad you and Yennefer have reunited. How long has it been?”

A log falls. Sparks fly up. “Fuck, Jaskier, she said you were dead.” The silence stretches like oceans between them.

“What do you want me to say Geralt? You wanted destiny to take me off your hands. I did what you wanted me to do; I left.” Jaskier isn’t sure what the emotion in Geralt’s face is.

“Jaskier, it’s been thirty years since I’ve heard anything from you since anyone on the continent did. Not even your family could tell me anything.” 

Jaskier raises an eyebrow, considering the fact that Geralt failed to notice how most of his ‘family’ that the Witcher had met had been changeling children that owed him favours. “That doesn’t answer my question, Witcher.” 

“And you’re not answering my question, bard” Geralt turns towards him. The firelight makes him look even more like a dangerous predator, and Jaskier felt his heartache.

Geralt takes a sudden step towards him and Jaskier’s magic, half-wild after over a decade of running free, reacts to the perceived threat. The grass under the Witcher’s feet grows so that within a few moments he can’t move his legs.

It doesn’t take that much strength for Geralt to rip himself free and to draw his sword, turning his back on Jaskier to cast his eyes over the looming darkness of the forest. “Fuck…” He mutters, and Jaskier is stunned by the blindness.

He can feel three dryads, a handful of pixies, and even a wyvern in the darkness, but Jaskier knew that all of them knew better than to interfere. “Geralt, there is nothing out there.”

“Something must have followed us out here, Jaskier.” Geralt keeps trying to see into the darkness, but even with his Witcher eyesight, he can’t see anything when there is nothing to be seen.

An Elm growing on the edge of the clearing rustles, its branches reaching out to turn Geralt around on Jaskier’s order. The silver sword swings, but it does nothing against the tree branches.

Taking a deep breath, and bringing tree roots to just below the surface in case Geralt swings for him, Jaskier speaks. “You and Yennefer must have looked for me in Lettenhove?”

“Jaskier, I don’t have time for your jokes." Geralt turns towards the elm tree that had turned his around, leaving him standing sideways to Jaskier. "Lettenhove is nothing but a collection of rundown shacks with no noble family to speak of; there was nothing to look for.”

“It wasn’t once, it was just swallowed up by the Fae curtain one day, and now there’s nothing to show for it.” Geralt is looking directly at him suddenly, and it feels like he’s seeing Jaskier for the very first time to the Bard. “The mortals that were swallowed up with the land died; they couldn’t survive that transition and their bones are still there somewhere.”

The sword in Geralt’s hand shakes. “Hmm…”

“The Fae queen took pity on me; though I looked too young and good to be dead, and they needed a new gatekeeper after the last one let the curtain get out of control, anyway.” He steps towards the shell shocked Witcher, easily prying the sword out of his hands.

Before he can move away again, Geralt grabs his wrist, and it takes everything in him not to pull the tree roots to the surface. “Fuck… How long has it been? All of those three decades?”

“Longer,” Jaskier pauses. “It’s been over a millennia now.”

Geralt stares and Jaskier takes it as permission to continue. “I don’t understand why you cared though? You asked fate to take me off your hands, and it did.”

The Witcher’s other hand, the one which wasn’t holding his wrist, found its way to his shoulder and Jaskier tensed, preparing himself for the inevitable, but it never came. 

Looking up at the Witcher, Jaskier could see the pain in his eyes as he struggled to find the words to say. “Why did you look for me, Geralt?” He tried to coax the Witcher to speak.

“Hmm…” The silence between them stretched. Jaskier began to move away to set up his bedroll by Roach when Geralt finally spoke again, words slow and halting as he forced them out. “I’m sorry for what I said in the mountain.”

Jaskier forced down the urge to run back to Geralt and kept his back to him. “What do you want me to do then, Witcher?" 

“Come back to me, Bard.” Geralt forces the word out, clearly unused to honesty. “Come travelling with me again.”

Something inside him aches as Jaskier mulls it over. “I will.” He settles on eventually, and he’s sure he imagines the joy in Geralt’s eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry in advance if it takes me forever to post the last section of this.


End file.
